Two women badly injured in a head-on car smash are trying to trace a Good Samaritan who came to their aid.

Victoria McGurk was a passenger in friend Karen Wright's Ford Fiesta when they were involved in a collision with an Audi S4 on Leven Bank, near Yarm, on Friday the 13th.

The 30-year-old nurse, from Brotton, told the Gazette she thought she was going to die in the wreckage of the car.

"I couldn't move or breath properly, and I could smell smoke," she said.

"The car spun round when it was hit and the airbags went off. The car started filling with smoke.

"I just thought I needed to get out in case the car exploded. It was just awful. I thought I was going to die."

Karen, a project facilitator who works with Victoria at Middlesbrough Primary Care Trust, had managed to escape from the crumpled Fiesta and call the emergency services.

But before they could arrive a driver in his 50s and his wife stopped to help the two distressed women.

"I had gone into shock," said Victoria. "He came over and held me straight in the seat until more help arrived, all the time comforting me, saying I was going to be all right.

"He also put Karen in his car and his wife comforted her."

A second driver, who Victoria believes is an officer at Kirklevington Prison, also stopped to help, and the two women have since been in touch to thank him.

"But we never got chance to thank the other man, and he was just marvelous," she said.

"I can't say enough how much he helped just by being there, and his wife calming Karen down because she was in shock as well.

"I know they had been coming home from the airport after a holiday in Tenerife, and I think he was in his 50s."

The women, who were going to Yarm for a night out, and the driver of the Audi were all treated in James Cook University Hospital after the incident at around 9.45pm on January 13.

Victoria suffered bruising and internal bleeding and was detained in hospital for four days for observation. Karen, 26, from Hartlepool, suffered bruising to the pelvis and cuts to her hands. Both are still off work with whiplash injuries.

Police say the 30-year-old Audi driver sustained whiplash and was released after treatment.

Victoria and Karen also want to thank the staff at Ward 37, the police and the fire brigade for their help.